


Counter-Song

by yarroway



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Crack, Meta, Multi, Parody, Satire, Season/Series 06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-13
Updated: 2010-04-13
Packaged: 2018-03-22 17:46:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3737848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yarroway/pseuds/yarroway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A parody poking fun at canon, fanon, and clichés.  No wombats were harmed in the writing of this story, but my thesaurus did get a little beat up.  Set in Season 6 around the time of Lockdown, and featuring pretty much everyone and everything I could cram in, including some Easter egg style references to other works (meant purely as homage and credited at the end).</p><p>This fic is dedicated to the color brown and the color blue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Counter-Song

**Author's Note:**

> This story is NOT aimed at any one fanfic or fan writer out there, so if you think I had your story in mind when I wrote this, you are wrong. The whole point was to go after canon and issues found in many, many fics (including my own). Please take this fic as it was intended--as humor.
> 
> Disclaimer: House, M.D. belongs to Heel and Toe Films, ShoreZ Productions, Bad Hat Harry Productions, and Universal Media Studios. I wish they'd take better care of it. I'm still not making any money from this.

Wilson was just putting the dishes in the sink when he and House heard a series of soft knocks at the door from all the way across the loft with their super hearing.

"Who is it?" House called, because in spite of what gets shown on TV, in cities you don't open the door without knowing who is on the other side.

There was no answer. They looked through the peephole and saw a young kid. House and Wilson exchanged annoyed looks as Wilson opened the door.

Standing on their doorstep was a little girl, maybe five years old. Her hair fell in adorable blonde ringlets to her shoulders. Her large cyan eyes were filled with tears, which dripped slowly down her porcelain cheeks.

"Are--are you my daddy?" she whispered shyly, looking up at House.

Wilson squatted down to her eye level. "What's your name, sweetheart?"

"Camellia Cute Nickname House," she said in a pitch perfect, musical voice.

Wilson looked up at House, who nodded and pressed a button hidden by their door. Camellia shrieked as the floor dropped away beneath her and she fell. Her screams got louder and then suddenly stopped.

"First one of those in a month," House said, and then, "Crap."

Wilson's gaze flitted to House and back to himself. They were both flickering like pictures on a TV set with bad reception, outlines wavering, breaking apart.

"Oh, no," he said. "Not again."

*************************

Cuddy sat in her car, sobbing her azure eyes out. It was all too much some days! The paperwork, the meetings, the business dealings! Maybe she shouldn't have let go of her entire legal department, but it had seemed like a good money-saving idea at the time since her hospital never got into difficult negotiations with insurance companies or unions. PPTH also never had major incidents like fatal epidemics in the newborn nursery brought about by improperly screened volunteers, or crazed gunmen terrorizing patients and staff. Twice. Who could have predicted _that_? Or that the victims and their families and her own traumatized staff would then turn around and embroil her hospital in frivolous lawsuits for damages and lost wages and suffering and an unsafe work environment. As if it were _her_ fault. Cuddy just didn't understand how people could be so darned insensitive. Didn't they know she was trying?

To top it all off Rachel was teething—teething! The wretched brat was inconsolable and had completely ruined her sleep and workout four days in a row. How Cuddy was supposed to do her job if she didn't look sexy, she just didn't know.

Cuddy dried her tears and fixed her makeup. She sprayed some Chanel No. 5 on herself, too, to cover the smell of Lucas' spunk. She wished he wasn't so insistent on having sex after she'd showered and dressed for work, but she didn't complain. Cuddy was a trooper in relationships. She knew that to complain or, worse, refuse him sex was not something nice girls did. Nice girls kept their men happy so they'd stick around. Cuddy'd gone too long without a man in her life to shelter her. She didn't want to do that again.

Besides, only losers didn't have boyfriends.

She glanced at her watch. It was about time the morning shift started coming in. She'd better get into her glass-walled office. Flashing her staff had become a part of her morning routine, and having once read a book about management (okay, skimmed. But it was a _thorough_ skimming), Cuddy knew the importance of routine.

***********************

Foreman stood at the whiteboard (I miss the whiteboard, don't you?), wondering where his boss was. Chase was napping, reeking of alcohol and sobbing quietly in his sleep. Foreman thought something might be troubling him, but chalked it up to lack of rest. He'd been a little concerned when he saw the red lines crisscrossing Chase's wrists, but the wombat had told him that he'd cut himself shaving, so probably Foreman was just being over protective. He was sweet like that, if he did say so himself.

He watched Remy appreciatively as she drank her coffee. The girl might have only two facial expressions, but damn! She was hot. Also he'd found her and Cameron making out under the table when he came in that morning, and that pleasant sight had put him in an excellent mood.

Taub was coming down the hall with his arm around a nurse. Foreman decided to wait for him to get into the office before starting the DDX. He wanted to be done before House got in so he could show everyone that he was just as smart as the Super Genius, only nicer and much better looking.

Taub gave the nurse a long, deep kiss and entered the office. When he went to sit down the chair rolled out from beneath him and he fell, hitting his head on the table leg. As the fellows scrambled to check on him, he began to seize.

"I need some help in here," Foreman said into thin air. That was the secret code to activate the invisible, inaudible, telepathic PA system. Cuddy had installed it right after his fellowship had begun. It was experimental, and she'd had to fire every single tech in the hospital to afford to buy and maintain it, but it had been worth it. Upgrades had allowed doctors to call for specific medications as well, which saved a lot of time in a crisis. Of course, having to run every test themselves used up a lot of time, but Foreman supposed it all worked out in the end. Within seconds the code team and their crash cart had teleported into the Diagnostics office with a bamf! and whisked Taub off to a room.

Foreman sighed. Now he'd be expected to go sit at Taub's bedside and act concerned, maybe even run some blood samples and get a CT, and that meant there was no way he'd be done with the patient's differential before House came in.

 _Nice guys_ , Foreman thought bitterly, _finish last_.

Still, Taub was unconscious…he'd never know how soon Foreman got there. Appearances mattered, which was just one more reason why Foreman was better than House.

Humming to himself, Foreman went into the men's room to polish his head.

*******************

"House, come _on_ ," Wilson called in irritation. He was grumpy, he was tired and he was strung out on Red Bull. Ever since the hospital policy that no Oncology patient was allowed to die without his personal presence, he'd been running himself ragged. Wilson knew that this was to ease up on the nurses' workload so they could act as Cuddy's administrative assistants, which he was certain was the career they'd all dreamed of when they went to nursing school, but he couldn't help but be a little upset. Other doctors got to go home at the end of the day and sleep in their own beds all night long. Other doctors got to give orders over the telephone. Other doctors had their patients handled by the staff who were on duty already. But not him, no. Wilson had to go in each and every time something happened, driving half an hour in the middle of the night just to say, "raise his morphine." Somehow it just didn't seem fair.

Why wasn't House coming out of the bathroom? They were going to be late! All right, enough was enough. Wilson was going to fetch him. He marched into House's bathroom. What he saw there made tears burst from his chocolate cinnamon mocha orbs.

House was laying on the floor, his phthalo eyes closed in unconsciousnousness, his arm bent at an unnatural angle with a shard of bone sticking out. Wilson wondered if it might be sprained. Some detail about arm anatomy was poking at the back of his mind, but he couldn't quite bring it into focus. If only there were a doctor here!

Oh, wait--he was a doctor.

Okay, so what did doctors do when they found their best friend sprawled unconscious on the bathroom floor with a sprained arm?

Right! Vitals! Wilson took House's vitals and was upset to find that he wasn't breathing. He whipped out his cell phone and called Cuddy. Fortunately she had nothing else to do all day and never silenced her phone for important meetings or even let it ring through to voicemail.

"Cuddy!" he shouted through his sobs. "Send an ambulance. He's not breathing!"

"Start CPR," she ordered, masterfully intuiting who 'he' was and where they both were. "I'm sending an ambulance right now."

Wilson thought he was very lucky that Cuddy had always wanted to be a 911 dispatcher when she was growing up, and maintained a private fleet of ambulances always on standby for hospital personnel.

Now, what was it he was supposed to do? Right, CPR! How did that go again? He couldn't remember, choked as he was by panic and fear and…err…panic. And love. Yes, love, Wilson realized. Seeing his best friend lying there unconscious and turning blue brought it all home to him. He realized now that he loved House! All those years of thinking he was straight, of dating and marrying (and marrying, and marrying) women…it had all been for ~~naught~~... ~~not~~... knot! It had been House he wanted all along—as long as they'd known each other. All nineteen years. Or was it twelve? Ten? Wilson had never quite gotten the hang of subtraction. Regardless, if only this latest medical mishap wouldn't take House from him forever he could declare his love and they would live together happily ever after, or at least shag like bunnies. Now House _really_ had to live. Wilson thought that Chase would probably remember how to do CPR. Wilson dialed the wombat.

"''Ello?"

"Wo-Chase, I need you and the team to get here right away! House isn't breathing!"

"We'll be right there," Chase assured. Wilson was thankful that Chase, a highly skilled micro surgeon and intensivist, would drop all his patients and his workload without even a thought to how this would impact his annual job performance evaluation and salary to come and help. Wilson knew it was because Chase, like all of the fellows past and present, secretly loved House. Platonically, of course.

***********************

Chase and Thirteen arrived at the loft before the ambulance, which was a good thing because otherwise they'd have been very confused when no one was home. Yes, I know that in canon no one but Cuddy and Lucas know where House and Wilson live, but I altered canon to fit my universe.

Chase (who was spotted with wet blood since he'd been right in the middle of an appendectomy when Wilson called, and had run out leaving his patient still open and on the table, because that's how much he loved House) immediately began CPR, while Thirteen started interrogating Wilson about his feelings. Wilson wasn't sure how she knew about his newfound passion, but she did. It was like she was a brilliant, empathetic soul who'd secretly been his closest confidante for years, without ever actually doing or being any of that. How unreal!

_Mandatory intrusive A/N: Cuddy used to be the yenta, but these days Thirteen has taken over that role in a lot of H/W fic, so I gave it to her instead. Thomas Moran's misogynistic 5-9 gave me so much Cuddy material that I couldn't use it all, anyway._

Under Thirteen's insightful yet sympathetic questioning Wilson tearfully admitted his love, even though they barely ever spoke and he secretly thought she was kind of an idiot to fall for that whole Thailand thing. But Wilson wore his heart on his sleeve, and always opened up to everyone, so he told her everything, how much he loved House, how he wanted nothing more than to hold him, and love him, and pet him, and call him George.

"How long did he go without breathing?" Chase asked.

"I'm not sure," Wilson said, a little piqued at being interrupted. "Maybe fifteen minutes."

The intensivist, who was from Australia, blanched. "Oh," was all he said.

Wilson shook his head. He'd long ago quit trying to understand Chase, and just settled for screwing him every Sunday in the confessional. He wasn't sure why Chase insisted it be there, but he wasn't going to argue with commitment-free sex. And that gorgeous hair! Wilson almost swooned just thinking about it even now, after the Great Weedwhacker Attacks of '09.

When the ambulance finally arrived they bundled House off. Wilson rode with him. The EMTs tried to pry him off the stretcher, but Wilson held on too tightly and in the end they just gave up and wheeled them both into the ambulance.

The EMTs unloaded the gurney into the hospital's lobby, since PPTH had no ambulance entrance to its ER. House and Wilson were wheeled through the crowd of gawking, contagious clinic patients.

************************

When Cuddy got Wilson's call, she was in the stairwell she always chose for freak-outs. It was her own little private space away from the hassle and stress of her daily life. Sure, it was a public, unlocked stairway in her hospital and she got some odd looks from her employees, but it was _her_ hospital and _her_ stairwell and if she needed to vent a little, well, who were they to judge? All they did was deal with matters of life and death and gross smelling bodily fluids every day. They had no idea of the stress she was under!

"Attagirl! You can do it," she said aloud, giving herself a mental pat on the shoulders. She strode out, shouting orders that everyone ignored. She couldn't believe that something had happened to House. What would she do if he were taken from her forever?

Theirs was a star-crossed love affair, like Romeo and Juliet only without the poison. House was her soul mate, her one true love, her Prince Charming. She hadn't really loved those other men, and she knew House had never loved any of his other women, not even a little. Stacy had been a nothing, a momentary distraction. Cameron was less than that. _She_ was meant to be with him, as he was meant to be with her, together forever and never apart.

After their one night together Cuddy had spent the last twenty years pining, without ever pursuing her fated lover. That just wouldn't be ladylike. No, she'd pined helplessly, in silence and loneliness, all this time, only flirting a teensy bit every now and then to encourage him. She knew House was a shy, insecure man who never went after what he wanted, not when rejection might crush his very soul. He had to know she was way too good for him, and it probably made him frightened. So the fact that he hadn't pursued her, except in the sense of asking for sex and harassing her and making her a laughingstock, just showed how much he really wanted her. Sure, he'd gone after Stacy and Honey and several others before them. He'd taken Stacy from hating him to moving in with him in just a week! But that meant Stacy was, in the larger picture, unimportant. It was Cuddy he'd truly wanted all that time, only he'd been too timid and self-effacing to risk her denial of his ardor. She'd spent all these long, LONG years waiting for him to quit being so gosh-darned shy, man up and declare his love, and now that might all be snatched away!

**************************

As he walked down the hall to Taub's room, Foreman realized that the patient had Alper's Disease. He didn't have a team to do the scut work for him, so he called orthopedics and browbeat the head guy there to send over Ed and Ned. Then he had them start the treatment. House had a boo-boo or something and was being brought into the ER. Cuddy always had extra meltdowns when House got hurt, so Foreman was pretty much free to do what he liked. Which meant Foreman might even have the case cured before House was back in the office. WOOT!

Foreman seated himself at Taub's bedside, scraping the chair slightly on the floor as he did.

Taub woke with a gasp. "I'm not having an affair!"

"All righty then," Foreman said.

"You're not my wife," the Plastic Surgeon noticed. "What happened?"

"You fell and hit your head," the Neurologist answered. "You had a seizure."

"Oh no!" the shorter man gasped.

"Don't worry," said the blacker man. "You just hit your head real hard. Rest for a few hours and you'll be fine."

"Thanks. Could you call Rachel and tell her I'm okay? And send Nurse Brenda in." The follicularly-challenged man smiled. "I need a sponge bath."

Foreman shuddered.

His pager went off, informing him that the treatment he'd prescribed was killing his patient. Which meant it wasn't Alper's after all. Foreman mentally reviewed the patient's symptoms, which he could do without a white board because he was just as smart as House.

Ah ha! Tapeworm. He ordered Fred and Zed to open her up and remove the worm, but they protested that the surgeons were all busy so he told them to give her IV strychnine instead. That should definitely kill the worm.

************************

_Back in the ER, Wilson exits stage left, pursued by a bear. That kind of thing happens a lot on days like this. Sometimes no one notices, but others…_

"Where's Wilson?" Cameron asked as she set House's broken arm, which she'd managed to diagnose because unlike the other doctors she often remembered that she'd gone to medical school. It was just the trivial details like when she'd known her first husband was dying that got mixed up.

"Wilson?" Chase asked. "I called him at home. He said he wasn't falling for another stunt and wished us luck with House…" he trailed off, frowning in confusion. "No, wait," he said as the coils of network TV and shipping preferences shifted around him. "He left without explanation four years ago and hasn't been heard from since. Um…no, actually, I just saw him in the cafeteria. He refused to visit House," Chase said. "He sounded angry."

"He hasn't spoke to House in seven minutes!" Cameron said expositionally, now that the story universe had coalesced. "He's just a big fat meanie! House really needs a friend. But Wilson—he doesn't act like a friend at all! Making House do laundry once a month! Not understanding that when House set the condo on fire he was merely looking for love, trying to get Wilson's attention the only way an abused, helpless, infantile, mute, world-renowned doctor who regularly does whatever he feels like could. House doesn't know it, but he's too good for Wilson. He needs someone to believe in him, to be there for him every single minute, to understand him, and encourage him, and squeeze him, and heal him with her love."

"Umm…okay," Chase said, not wanting to argue while he was distracted by Cameron's silky blonde hair. He suspected that she didn't truly love him. He'd seen her making out with Thirteen that morning (not that he blamed her, because the girl was hot). No one had ever loved the real him anyway. Chase took out his little knife and traced a red line across his arm, just wanting to feel something besides the unbearable emotional pain he'd been in for years now. He hoped Cameron would notice, but she didn't. No one ever did. He was so alone! He stuffed the knife away quickly as Cuddy tottered into the room, ankles wobbling on her stilettos.

"How is he?" she asked worriedly.

"He has a compound fracture of the left arm," Cameron reported, "and he's unconscious. Chase said he was without oxygen for over fifteen minutes all together."

"I'm right here, actually," the Intensivist said, dripping blood onto the floor. "And it was—"

The women ignored him.

"You heartless bastard!" Cuddy yelled, and punched House in the face.

A nameless candy striper, who just happened to be passing by, moved to intervene in this assault on a helpless patient, but her friend stopped her. "That's not battery," she said wisely. "That's foreplay." They strolled out of the scene.

**************************

Cuddy sat at House's side, tenderly stroking his hand as tears fell from her cesious ocular orbs. Her pager went off again. It was probably some stupid hospital-running-thing, so she ignored it. It was more important that she stay here. Cuddy knew that she was ultimately responsible for the well being of all the patients and staff in the hospital, but she didn't really care.

"What's going on, babe?" Lucas asked from behind her.

"Oh, hi," Cuddy giggled uncomfortably and twirled a finger in her curly raven locks. "I'm just sitting with House."

"You know he's brain dead, right?" Lucas asked. "I mean, I'm no doctor, but that long without oxygen…even I know that's bad." He waggled his eyebrows lasciviously. Cuddy sighed. She wasn't really in the mood, what with her One True Love being brain dead and all, but she knew she had to give in to keep Lucas around, so when he romantically lead the way into the nearest supply closet, she followed. She never even noticed when he replaced her cell phone and beeper with a deck of cards and a PEZ dispenser.

**************************

As soon as they left, Wilson winked back into existence. His expression took on a sinister cast, and spooky, odd shaped shadows surrounded him. He bent down and whispered in House's ear. "You're being very bad," he said menacingly. "If you don't recover right now I am going to have to punish you. You know all those times I lectured you when all you wanted was an enabler to give you your drugs, the ones that were going to kill your liver? You remember the time I forced you to try to kill yourself with DBS on the off chance my girlfriend might live because I never cared about you at all even though I let you run roughshod over me all these years and gave up everything for you and refused to even tell Amber I wouldn't let you move in to her place? Well that's nothing compared to what I'll do if you don't wake up unscathed." His voice sank to an even more psycho-killery register. His fingers curled tightly around House's arm. "Don't force me to bring out -- the comfy chair."

The dark shadows fled. Wilson seated himself beside House. He took House's hand in his, lacing the sapphire-eyed man's long pianist fingers (seriously, it's well known that people with long fingers all play well. House'd had his measured by the Official Piano-Forte Players' Finger Society back when he was fourteen. His father had beaten him afterwards because House's fingers were longer than his. Blythe had insisted that size was secondary to skill and practice, but men never believe that) with his own.

House began to toss and turn in delirium. There was no medical reason for him to be delirious, but he was anyway. He began crying piteously, begging and pleading to be saved from his father.

Wilson knew House was a super private guy who never told anyone except random rape patients that the first sixteen years of his life were spent chained in the basement and being beaten daily, but Wilson had figured it out nonetheless. As House's best friend of many years and a reasonably intelligent guy who regularly dealt with distraught patients and their equally distraught loved ones, Wilson had no absolutely idea what to do. He decided to page every single PPTH staffer to the ER. Even the janitors. That way he'd be sure to get some help.

House had spent the last several years being manipulative, cruel, and pointlessly rude to everyone at PPTH, but at this moment every single co-worker he had fell helplessly in love with him. There's nothing like the sight of a grown man unraveling into a complete wreck to engender adoration in the hardest of hearts. Even Foreman, when he poked his head in for a brief moment, felt a little fluttering in his chest (he was immeasurably relieved when it later turned out to be indigestion from the egg and Taylor ham sandwich he'd had for breakfast).

************************

Cuddy bounded out of the supply closet, Lucas at her heels. "Oh no!" she exclaimed with flashing eyes the color of the New Jersey sky on a cloudless and more or less smog free day. "We have to bring him around!" She climbed onto his bed and waved her bosoms in House's face. Wilson frowned but did not interfere. Boobs and tearful declarations of love had a better chance than medicine of curing House. Speaking of which…

"Oh no!" Cameron cried, running into the room to tenderly mop House's brow and stroke his luxuriantly full head of hair. She was careful not to jostle his black eye. "Wake up House. It's okay. We're all here with you, Housey-Wouseykins. We love you and we'll never let you go."

Chase followed her. He knelt on the floor and began massaging House's feet adoringly.

Taub tottered in. He was bruised in several places, had bite marks on his arms, and a big sappy smile on his face. He leaned in the corner, swaying slightly with dizziness, and began to sing That's Amore.

House's hysteria died away. Apparently the boob cure had worked. Although they all had their differences, everyone had pulled together to bring him through this. Cuddy held one of House's hands, and Wilson the other, each whispering competing sweet nothings into his ears. Chase knelt on the floor  fondling House's toes, and Cameron's fingers ran unceasingly through House's hair. Taub was crooning love songs to House. Blue the janitor accompanied him on harmonica. Thirteen, a little jealous that House was upstaging her, sat stiffly at his bedside (she did everything stiffly but no one ever cared because she was hot, or so I've been repeatedly assured) with a hand on his knee. Even Lucas had put aside his completely irrational jealousy and was gently rubbing liniment into House's thigh with one hand (his other was nestled tenderly on Cuddy's right buttock).

**************************

Foreman was pissed. Seriously pissed. The patient didn't have Alper's, or a tapeworm, or even leukemia. She was on life support now from all the failed treatments Red and Ked, or was it Dred, had given her. He consoled himself with the knowledge that House always got it wrong several times before he got it right.

The team, his soon to be employees, were all with House. Foreman needed them to come up with the answers, and since his repeated pages had been ignored, he had no choice but to go to them. He stopped at Cuddy's office on the way there to put in his application for the head of Diagnostics squarely on her desk. He got the APPROVED stamp out of her desk and put it beside the application. He put a cup of coffee beside that, light and sweet.

Foreman swept into House's room and started rattling off symptoms before anyone had a chance to tell him he was being perhaps a bit forward. Taub suggested West Nile, and Chase thought it was rabies. Thirteen thought it was a brain tumor. Blue thought it was crabs, like his cousin got that time in Vegas. Cameron was arguing in favor of listeria when House's eyes opened.

House blinked his ultramarine eyes a few times, looking around the room at the sea of smiling faces (and one scowling one) that were turned to his. He cleared his throat.

"You IDIOTS!" he said. "It's the flu. Start her on anti-virals and support her while her body processes all the crap you did to it."

"All right, you heard him," Thirteen said, getting up and basking in her beauty and all around awesomeness. "Let's go." The ducklings and numbers and cottages and janitor followed her out with Foreman bringing up the rear, muttering unhappily to himself about still being the prettiest.

Cuddy gave a sigh and asked Lucas if he wouldn't mind bringing her the pile of folders on her desk. He agreed, leaving her (and Wilson) alone with House. Finally!

"I knew you'd come back to me," she said, leaning forward to show him her nips and stare deeply into his eyes. She didn't mind that one was swelling shut rapidly and turning black because she wasn't shallow like that. House smiled sappily, and Wilson began to worry that going all that time without breathing might have done a little something to his brain.

"I don't want anything to happen to you," she said.

"I don't want anything to happen to me either," he replied lovingly. A frown crossed his face. "My arm hurts," he said. "Can I get a Tylenol?"

"Oh, House, it's just a broken arm," Cuddy and Wilson and the writers said in unison. "What's hurting you are the emotions you've repressed all these years. The pain is all in your head."

There came a very loud, long series of crashing sounds as chronic pain sufferers all across the country chucked furniture at their television sets.

"Maybe you're right," House told Cuddy, his aqua aura eyes glinting with emotion. "I never told you, but—I love you. I've always loved you."

"I've always loved you too," she replied.

"I've loved you longer," he insisted.

"No, I've loved you longer," she said, starting to get a little angry.

"Oh, Lise!"

"I want to have your baby," she told him. "I know you're pretty old for that and hate children, and I know I'm pretty much too old to get pregnant and at extremely high risk of having a kid with birth defects because of my age, and I know that I have no time for the child I already have let alone another one maybe with special needs, but I just feel it would be a totally bonding experience that would bring us together as a man and woman should be to take care of a selfish parasite that will need all of our time and money and energy for the next several years, and quite possibly the rest of your life."

"Oh, Liiiiise!" House moaned ecstatically. "Whatever you want, babe."

Music swelled in the background as they gazed adoringly into each other's cerulean pools.

Wilson cleared his throat, seething with jealousy. They had pools. _He_ didn't have a pool. Sure, he had anywhere from one to three alimony payments, veterinary bills from the world's longest lived dog, and was single-handedly supporting House, but still, he could afford a pool if he wanted to, if he cut back in other areas. It wasn't fair, damn it! He liked swimming and laying out in deck chairs as much as either of them. It just wasn't fair.

He'd had enough! Wilson whirled and ran out of the room, knocking Lucas over in his flight. He paused long enough to give the PI a hand up and brush some particles of stray dirt from his jacket. Then he took off again, tears falling from his toast-colored eyes.

**************************

_Can we just assume I_

_inserted_

_moody song lyrics here?_

_Thanks._

_I didn't really want to go find any,_

_and you didn't really want to read them,_

_so let's just leave it at_

_that._

When Wilson got home he decided that if House didn't love him, life just wasn't worth living. Sure, he'd been through break-ups before, been divorced three times, been shot at as he jumped out of bedroom windows, and even had a girlfriend die in his arms, but none of that compared to this soul destroying pain (though the shotgun pellets in his tush came close)!

As a man of medicine, Wilson decided that the best way to end his pain was to take an overdose of easily counteracted, slow acting pills. He'd just fade off to sleep and never wake again unless someone arrived home in the next six or seven hours to save him. He couldn't face a life without House's love, and he had no idea at all how to win it (though he suspected that _talking_ might somehow be involved), so suicide was the only logical choice. Obviously.

************************

Cuddy, Chase, Cameron, Foreman and Thirteen (but not Taub because he's short and not Lucas because people don't like him) were sitting in Diagnostics having a snack when suddenly three large men came in the door.

"We're bad guys," said one.

"Yeah, real bad," said the next.

"So you'll want to do everything we say. Otherwise you might get hurt," said the third.

"Everyone move real easy and slow. You're all being kidnapped. The girls are being sent to our rape factories, the men will be senselessly tortured and then raped, and you…wombat…" here guy number one paused, looking appraisingly at Chase. He licked his lips. "You get to sit up front with me."

Foreman frowned. The telepathic PA system was no good in situations like these, but he was a resourceful guy, and he didn't really want to be tortured, senselessly or otherwise. He was too smart (as smart as House) and too good-looking for that. And nice. Had he forgotten nice?

Foreman picked up his mug of steaming hot coffee and dashed it into the first guy's face, blinding him-maybe permanently, from the sound of the screams. Then he punched him in the stomach until he felt ribs breaking beneath his fist, kicked him in the knees till they felt all crunchy, and, when the thug fell, kicked him in the head a dozen times. When he was done he looked up to find Cameron, Cuddy and Chase weeping hysterically in the corner. Thirteen had rendered the other two goons unconscious and tied them up with her mad super ninja skillz. _Wow_ , he wondered, _where'd she learn that?_ She was so alluringly mysterious! Sometimes Foreman wished he hadn't so selflessly fired her to keep her at his side.

Nice guys really do finish last.

Foreman called security to come get the thugs. Then he checked on the others. Cameron and Cuddy had for no apparent reason retreated into a childlike state, drooling and babbling like babies. Chase was still crying silently, hiding under the table. Foreman hauled him out and smacked him a couple times. Chase seemed back to his usual self after that, diapering Cuddy and Cameron as he sipped from the silver flask that he always kept tucked inside his jacket. Foreman knew the girls would be fine, they just needed lots of patience and love…and a really large supply of Pampers.

**************************

House sauntered home, still glowing from his earlier bout of deeply loving soul-matey sex with Cuddy. He was blissfully unaware that she was even now being put into a grownup sized cradle by Lucas, complete with a powder pink mobile that played Hush Little Baby when you wound it up. Lucas thought he'd never been so in love. There's just something romantic and special about a total basket case, which was why he'd taken her home instead of getting her some psychiatric help like the team had for Cameron (Cameron's therapist was going to put her in the spare bedroom, and adopt her. Isn't that what therapists do?). But the force of Lucas' love was so pure and strong that he was pretty sure he'd have Cuddy back in the office by next Monday.

He certainly hoped so. He couldn't afford the mortgage payments by himself.

Any, as I was saying, way. House drove home, having shaken off the effects of all that oxygen deprivation like the trifle it was. He came into the loft singing Swing Low Sweet Chariot, because having Cuddy's love was like meeting God, in whom he didn't believe but now he did. It was the best thing to happen to him ever, including that time he'd put fifty leeches in his dad's sleeping bag. While his dad was sleeping in it.

The loft was oddly quiet. Yet he was sure Wilson was here. Where else would he be? House needed someone to sign his cast (it was gentian to match his eyes), so he went to look for Wilson.

He found the oncolgist, still dressed, lying asleep across his bed. A letter lay beside him.

House picked up the letter and read. "Dear House," it said. "This is entirely your fault. I love you and you don't love me and so now I want you to remember me forever as that other dude you knew who killed himself. Love, Wilson. PS: its totally unfair that I don't get to have a pool."

House, who almost never forgot that he'd been to med. school, single-handedly pumped Wilson's stomach and gave him charcoal and brought him around with no lasting ill effects at all. Wilson awoke to the sight of tears falling from Greg's chalybeous eyes.

"Oh Jimmy," Greg breathed. "How could you leave me? Don't you know I'm nothing without you?"

Jimmy's depression lifted completely and forever with this declaration of love, and he felt delight fill his soul. He threw himself into Greg's arms. The older man held him tightly, rubbing soothing polygons on his back and right elbow for several hours until they both stopped crying.

"What—what about Cuddy?" Wilson asked.

House shrugged. "She's my other one true love," the taller, older, crippled-er diagnostician said. "But I'm man enough to handle two of you. You'll just have to share."

Wilson nodded happily. "I'm good at sharing," he said, and snuggled into House's chest like a contented little puppy.

 

 

** Epilogue **

The two men came back into focus. Wilson's face was chalky. House's was green.

"I need a drink," House said.

"I need two," Wilson replied.

Just then there was a knock at the door.

House looked at Wilson and groaned.

"Might as well get it over with," Wilson said. A glance through the peephole showed a teenage boy with unruly wavy brown hair, piercing indigo eyes, and a guitar strapped to his back. He wore black jeans, motorcycle boots, and a graphic tee. A leather band was snapped around his wrist.

"It's for you," Wilson said to House. He opened the door.

"Hi," the boy said. "I'm Theodore Mozart House. I'm a sixteen year old senior at Harvard and I'm putting together my first cd. My agent says he thinks it'll go platinum. I was living with my mom who never told you she was pregnant and raised me alone without child support for no earthly reason, but then she died and I went to live with my abusive uncle. After two years of that I finally ran away and now I need a place to crash. I could really use a father figure, too, though I'll totally understand if you aren't up for it—Pops."

Wilson just sighed.

House pushed the button and Teddy—Wilson was sure the kid would have wanted to be called Teddy—went sailing down the chute to the industrial incinerator Wilson had installed when he bought the place.

House closed and locked the door. They went and sat down together, watching a monster truck rally and drinking Jack and gingers in peace and quiet. Finally.

 

The End.

 

With a nod to...

[ **Still the prettiest..** **.** ](http://cassieclaire.livejournal.com/10676.html)

[ **Cutting Chase** ](http://azalaea.livejournal.com/310.html)

[ **Douglas Adams** ](http://https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamf>%20<strong>Bamf!</strong>%20</a>%0A</p>%0A%0A<p>%0A%20%20<a%20href=)

[ **George** ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JlVqfC8-UI)

[ **No one expects...** ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSe38dzJYkY)


End file.
